Generation Me and Religion

In the book Generation Me, Jean Twenge starts off talking about how our society is driven by our individual goals and needs, and how our society is more excepting and laid back then others. She says “There is no single right way to live” (pg. 19) and our generation does whatever feels necessary to make themselves happy as an individual. We strive to be the best in our individuality and do not care what others think about us.
I think the reason she didn’t include religion in the book is because throughout the book she is talking about individuality. Since religion is a very controversial topic and there are so many different religions in our society it would be hard to include each of the religious views. I think Jean Twenge’s true purpose of writing her book was to show how our generation is about individuality and to help today’s society discover who they really are. The lack of religion in the book didn’t change my opinion because she did make a point to mention religion in our society and how it is less likely for us to go to church and pray. She says “GenMe is also less willing to follow rules of organized religion” (pg34). “Our generation would rather do what they wanted than to join a group or go to church” (pg35). Religion, in general, tends to have a way of making people conform to the ways of the church which takes way from Dr. Jean Twenge purpose of Generation Me.
If I had included a section of religion I would include the topic of sub staining abstinence until the point of marriage. As Dr. Jean Twenge mentioned in her book, our ideals of what is right and wrong morally have substantially changed throughout the years. “In the late 1950’s, only 30 percent of young people approved of sex before marriage, now 75 percent approve” (pg163). With the addition of this section in Dr. Jean Twenge’s book, we could have compared how much of an influence religion has on this topic. With young people’s religious views loosing importance, we see many more of what used to be seen as “sinful” actions becoming more of a part of everyday life.
As we have seen from Dr. Jean Twenge’s book, she states that the actions of our young society are declining as a whole. The lack of religion and the lessoning of morals lead us inevitably to the point where we no longer know the difference between what is right and wrong.